So, I've been playing League of Legends when I should be doing...uh...more important things.

Anyway, for those of you who don't know what LoL is, it's a game based on the WC III mod (although there are others [TIDES OF BLOOD FOR LIFE YO] and the game type had its origins in SC) Defense of the Ancients. If THAT doesn't mean anything to you, well, I can't help you there.

So, it should be a familiar setup to all of you. You have bases, minions, and turrets; they have bases, minions, and turrets. You need to blow their shit up before they blow your shit up, and you need to pick one of 40+ish champions to do it with (don't worry Mozz, they made a character just for you.). It's currently a F2P game, although all of the champions are locked from the outset: each week has a selection of 10 champions all players can use, and you can unlock them for permanent use through either in-game currency or actual moniez (though if you're going the latter route, you might as well pick up the "collector's pack" at Best Buy for 20 bucks, since it unlocks 20 champions and they toss in a $10 card to boot).

Man, I sound like a fucking whore typing this.

Anyone else play, or am I the only person who likes DotA-style RTSes on this forum?

__________________

"It does not matter anymore. We cannot change the past. The future will have to do."
-Windham Khatib

I was invited to play about a month/two months ago by "TheOtherGuy444" (a former UPNer), but I never got around to it because I fudging hated WC III, and have enough on my plate as far as online games go.

Hello Blastoise it appears that you have not posted on our forums in several weeks, why not take a few moments to ask a question, help provide a solution or just engage in a conversation with another member in any one of our forums?

I'm sorry Pokemon forum, but I've been unfaithful to you with a DotA clone that I've spent about 30 bucks on so far. I'm...not a good person.

"But Blastoise, I don't know what DotA is!"

What do you mean, you don't know what DotA is? Some Swedes made a song about it.

"No...not ringing a bell."

Goddamnit, fine.

Blastoise's Authoritative Guide on DotA GamesTotally Not Talking Out of My Ass, Honest

What is DotA?

The Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients (DotA) is widely considered to be inspired by the similar Starcraft map Aeon of Strife (AoS). But hey, AoS is something Starcraft that the Koreans don't give a shit about, which should tell you how many people know that aforementioned fact or care.

DotA (there are other mods in the same "genre", but DotA is the most popular by far) is a team based game between two teams of five people each. Each player controls a hero unit that can level and acquire items, and each team has an AI "player" that controls each team's base and its endless waves of suicidal, expendable mooks. Like an RTS, the goal is to destroy the enemy's base before they destroy yours: unlike an RTS it can be played at a relatively competitive level by people who don't have a 200+ APM, making it appealing to people who like the concept of RTSes but are not high-functioning autistics.

Break down the map for me.

A typical DotA map is broken into three "lanes," or paths that each team's AI minions take towards the enemy base. Each side usually has one or more sets of turrets on their half of the path, which are a focal point of many battles due to their map control and their ability to kill your painfully stupid teammates (which in an average DotA game makes them horrifically lethal). Many maps have neutral areas (known as the "jungle") filled with neutral monsters that can be killed for experience and gold and generally offer alternate paths for sneaky players to take advantage of. The jungle often also features unique monsters that can be killed for additional benefits, although their primary purpose is actually to distract your team from doing useful things like a a landfill full of tinfoil to a magpie.

So, what about the heroes?

Each DotA-style game features a large number of hero/champion characters to choose from: some restrict selection based on side (like restricting vicious, hellborne demon heroes to the side that represents vicious, hellborne demons), while others have more...uh...slutty...um...moving on...hero selections. Nonetheless, heroes can generally be counted on to fall into the following general roles:

Tanks/Support
Played By: People with deep-seated self-loathing

The job of the tank is to dive deep into a swirling maelstrom of pain and suffering and like it. I'm pretty sure that's the textbook definition of masochism.

The "tank" character is essentially a walking Sophie's choice for the other team: they have relatively low DPS and are pretty hard to kill, but are generally annoying enough through other methods (stuns, snares, AoE abilities, etc.) that the enemy team simply can't ignore them. The job of the tank is to draw the enemy's attention so that his or her squishier companions can blow their loads all over the enemy team before the enemy team does the same in their eyes.

"But Blastoise, doesn't this require the tank's team to be relatively coordinated and on the ball?" You're right! This is also why playing a tank in your average pick-up game is like rubbing your dick against a cheese grater.

Also, by virtue of the tank's duty as a stoic, self-sacrificing frontline warrior/patsy fall guy expect your team to act exponentially more retarded by virtue of your presence. Prepare to get bitched out for not "saving" a teammate that wandered deep behind enemy lines when you were halfway across the map, and about how selfish you are for not helping a teammate when the only possible outcome would be that the enemy team gets two free kills instead of one.

Carries/DPS
Played By: Attention whores

A Carry is a hero that is said to "carry their team to victory." Since that means absolutely nothing to anyone, a more accurate description is a hero that is (typically) relatively weak early on, but becomes exponentially powerful as they get more items and experience. Imagine a caterpillar that turns into a beautiful butterfly with a tactical nuke and a bad case of jingoism and you get the general idea.

At their most extreme (which depends a lot on the mod/game you're playing) carries can wipe the floor with the enemy team singlehandedly. This sense of godhood appeals to horrifically maladjusted DotA players, and as such your average team will have at least half the players playing carry heroes. Expect these players to bitch at each other about which one of them is "the killstealing faggot noob," and to compare their K/D ratios because they labor under the mistaken belief that they're playing Quake deathmatch.

Cognitive Dissonance
Played By: Everyone (except you)

I'm about to Godwin you. But I do it for a noble purpose.

The Nazi Holocaust and the international response at the end of the war was an interesting study in moral quandries: when a crime is irredeemably horrific but the culprit is an entire country of people, who is at fault? The men at the top, obviously, but then the common man enabled their horrible schemes to come to pass in the first place. Conversely, you had a fringe faction that grew in such power and influence that the common man may have had little choice but to go along, regardless of their personal feelings. Hazy moral boundaries aside, there is one thing that DotA players at large have learned from the greatest tragedy of the twentieth century:

Collective responsibility means never having to be at fault for horrific fuckups

Enemy carry bending you all over the table? Stupid noob teammates dying to him and feeding him lots of free exp and gold.

Tower just got destroyed and you've been in the jungle since the beginning of the game? Stupid noob teammates who can't even defend their own lane.

You just got killed? Stupid noob teammates not doing their damn jobs.

Your team won? All you, baby.

Why is the average DotA player such an insufferable sand-filled vaginal douche?

My best guess is because DotA and its imitators have a lot of shit going on. My Leauge of Legends box proudly proclaims how the game has "over 100 items" to choose from, each of which has varying levels of use on the game's 40+ heroes and some of which are only useful under certain circumstances. Now imagine having to choose which of these 100+ items you want in the middle of a game, a choice which will have a serious impact on your performance down the line. Now imagine having to have some basic, operating knowledge about the dozens of heroes you might face, and how your hero can counter them.

Oh, and you need to make the above informed decisions in a relatively small timeframe, which means you're up shit creek if you don't come in with at least a moderately informed idea of what you're up against. Oh, and you're playing with four other people, each of whom (to hear them tell it) fell out of the womb landing Ezreal's skill shots like they were Vash the Stampede.

In simpler terms: DotA and DotA-likes have a lot of in-game information that can only be practically absorbed outside of the game itself, and acquiring this knowledge makes the difference between a "useless Mexican Jew lizard feeder" and someone who is credit to team. Add to this volatile brew a collection of hyper-competitive teenage boys still stinging over the fact that they can't hack it in actual RTSes and you have the perfect petri dish for proving the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

So...do you even like DotA?

Eh, never got into DotA specifically (getting kicked because I never had one of the seeming 350 flavors of DotA map that were circling around battle.net at the time didn't help), but I liked playing Tides of Blood when I wasn't playing team tower defense mods. And League of Legends is pretty good too.

...Anyone else play LoL?

__________________

"It does not matter anymore. We cannot change the past. The future will have to do."
-Windham Khatib

Does anybody else here play League of Legends?
For those who don't know its a Free to Play MOBA game along the lines of DoTA. It's been picking up a lot of steam lately and I'm just wondering if any UPNers have caught the LoL fever.

Ohhh! What's your guys' names? Add me: TheSweenz. I've only been playing for a few weeks, but I'm up to level 23 already because I've spent most of my free time playing it. There IS a rampant tendency for people to bitch about their teammates when things aren't going well. Whenever someone does I just tell him to look at the man in the mirror. A good old Michael Jackson reference often lightens the mood.

When Dota 2 comes out I'll switch to that. Too bad I won't be able to train and win one MILLION dollars.

Added Mauler5150, but I couldn't find GrJackass. You play on a server other than NA? How about you dosuser? I'd love to play with my old Civ buddy! Speaking of which, do you plan on getting Civ 5? It's improved a lot with the new patches.

I started playing like 2 months ago or something I think it is now. I'm really not all that great but I love playing the game, especially with my friends. Most of my games are negative but I think I just had my best game ever. I pretty much carried my entire team. We had an Amumu that didn't know how to jungle and we were pretty much getting totally outclassed for most of the game. Anyway, here's a pic of the results and my username if anyone wants to add me.

League of Legends is an online PvP game in which you control a single champion on a battlefield of usually 10, sometimes 6 characters. There are a ton of champions, which keeps the game varied, and they all have different niches and/or playstyles. That's...pretty much it. The controls are intuitive, if the strategy can be obscure. A word of warning; these games take a long time and are designed as PvP combat. This means that both sides have the same obstacles and are trying their darnedest to prevent you from winning. A typical engagement can last over half an hour, a really good one lasts at least 20 minutes (they have a surrender rule), and a horrible dragged-out nobody-wins game can last for an hour and a half. Most people vote to surrender by the hour mark, though.

I know a lot of other BYU students that play this, and that was how I got into it. I like my ranged characters more, plus I like the new guy Varus (he's another archer like Ashe ), and I can't wait to unlock him sometime. Just recently unlocked Ahri too, she's so great for spell-spamming like Veigar is. And I like the other Ice attribute characters like Nunu and Anivia. I might go after Sejuani next, not sure about it yet.

So after months and months and months of friends chipping away at my defensive barriers in which I insisted NOT to play this, I finally broke down at gave it a shot.

And I'm falling deep into the rabbit hole.

I've played about maybe 10 games so far and I love it. It's very fun, but so frustrating. So, so frustrating. I've found I clicked with Annie and Soraka the best so far. The other day I actually got a triple kill with Annie, I was incredibly surprised. Gonna up a video of it at some point so I can always remember it.

So after months and months and months of friends chipping away at my defensive barriers in which I insisted NOT to play this, I finally broke down at gave it a shot.

And I'm falling deep into the rabbit hole.

I've played about maybe 10 games so far and I love it. It's very fun, but so frustrating. So, so frustrating. I've found I clicked with Annie and Soraka the best so far. The other day I actually got a triple kill with Annie, I was incredibly surprised. Gonna up a video of it at some point so I can always remember it.

First League insult: "Go bot u idiot", brought a tear to my eye :')

Summoner name: Hieroh (is this what I share?)

You'll slowly but surely learn that 99% of the Community are selfish bastards that want Mid, just to end up feeding the inevitable Katarina they'll encounter. Or they'll do the same on Top because they believe that Darius is invincible only to be thrashed by a Wukong who actually knows what he's doing. Now, when you do find players who are friendly, nice, and know what they're up to, it's a very rewarding, fun and entertaining experience, it is true-

Now, my Summoner Name is "JudgeMasterCid". Glad to make your acquaintance in the Fields of Justice.

Agreed. As a newb, it's best to basically ignore your teammates and stay a safe distance away from enemy champions (unless it's an obvious kill opportunity) and just focus on last hitting minions. Last hitting is the most fundamental and important skill in the game, and is by far the best way to get better when you're new to the game. Map awareness, ganking, and fighting enemy champions in lane are things you can work on later (and will come naturally to you with enough experience) once you can farm minions at a decent level. You can also watch pro gamers' streams and observe how they play.

I haven't played this game in several months. At my peak, I attained gold ranking and about 1500 elo in season 2. Then season 3 came, I struggled with all the changes and didn't feel like re-learning the game, so I got into Dota 2 instead. I might play LoL again if its popularity massively outstrips Dota 2's even after it gets out of beta. Right now I need to focus on my Starcraft II "career".